Bone Deep

by Sandra Ireland

  ‘It was a one-off. I’m back now.’

  We’ll see about that. I don’t want her near my son, not now, knowing what she’s capable of. I raise my voice, a little querulously. ‘You did get my phone message, didn’t you? You could have answered.’

  ‘I did get your messages. All of them.’

  What is that look she’s giving me? Distrust? Suspicion? She’s regarding me like Floss does sometimes, waiting for me to yell at her, or smack her with a rolled-up newspaper. But I’m not sure what I’m supposed to have done. Things are getting hazy. I decide to ignore it.

  ‘So the notebook is in the study. You’ll see the story has progressed. So let’s get it typed up – chop-chop.’

  ‘But first you want a cup of tea and a water biscuit with cheese?’

  ‘Two water biscuits.’ I wave her away. I try to recapture my concerns of a moment ago, but they’ve disspated like mist. I seem to lose the thread of my thoughts continually these days, while the past remains sharply in focus. ‘Thank you, dear. It’s so good to have you back.’

  That doesn’t ring true. There’s a reason I don’t want her back, but at this moment I can’t quite grasp it. I settle more comfortably on my pillow and wait for my cup of tea and chocolate digestives.

  Lucie

  The house feels strange without Mac bumping around. I hadn’t realised how much noise she makes. Even when I’m working in the study, I’m aware of her presence, her muttered conversations with the dogs and her off-key humming. She’s either pottering from room to room with a blanket wrapped around her like a plaid, or she’s busy in the kitchen, lumping dog food into earthenware bowls or scraping mud off her boots or banging the back door.

  The house is too quiet, as if something has just left. I remember being a teenager, bunking off school, faking illness, everyone else going about their day. I remember the feeling of the house settling around you, sussing you out – the imposter.

  I make tea, splodging the bag about for an extra three seconds, just as Mac likes it, and spread the water biscuits, licking butter from my thumb. For once, the dogs have not followed me, but still I feel like I’m being watched. The hairs on my forearms prickle. When I take up the snack, Mac is asleep, her head thrown back on the pillow. Floss fans her tail and looks up at me with pleading eyes, careful not to move too much. Mac’s skin is translucent, her mouth slightly open, lips vibrating with a soft, purring snore. She looks vulnerable, not the sort of person who would leave all those weird messages on my voicemail. I place the mug and plate softly on the bedside cabinet and tiptoe downstairs.

  I’d turned my phone off last night and gone to bed, anxious to separate myself from the rest of the world and what might be brewing with Jane. I’m almost willing my sister to see the light. I’m waiting for an explosion, a reckoning – anything to end this torment. Unable to drift off for hours. I’d woken in the morning with the feeling that I’d spent the night caught in that hazy place between waking and sleeping. Feeling hungover and cranky, I’d switched on my phone to discover Mac had left endless voicemails. Anna, I haven’t seen you for ages . . . Anna, we have a lot of work to catch up on, chop-chop . . . Where are you? I really need you here . . .

  I listened to them all, poking at my Weetabix with a spoon, but unable to eat. What the hell was going on? Anna? Who’s Anna? With each message the mood got darker and the tone more frantic until it no longer sounded like Mac’s voice. That was the most chilling thing. I could hear the dogs barking frantically in the background, as if she’d shut them in somewhere.

  Panic gripped me as I realised I’d just swapped one unbearable situation for another. Should I phone Arthur? He’d want to know, wouldn’t he, if his mother was having a breakdown? In the end I’d tossed my cereal bowl into the sink, unable to make a decision.

  Even now, back at work, I’m unable to focus. The study is freezing; I can see smoke-breath when I open my mouth. The smell is overpowering, a weird bouquet of damp woodland and dirty carpet. I wonder if one of the dogs has peed in here again. I mentally go through the motions of opening the solitary window, visualise clambering on the desk, shuffling through piles of crap. It’s too much bother. Instead I stand there, paralysed, and after a few moments I realise I’m staring at the wastepaper basket.

  Had I crumpled up the poem and chucked it in there? I rack my brains, but it’s useless. I’d been upset, disturbed. You do things and then you don’t remember them. Or had I held on to it, dropped it somewhere in the Miller’s Cottage for Jane to find? Maybe Mac had fished the poem from the basket. Liked it, perhaps, and decided to keep it. But neither of those scenarios explain how it got into Reuben’s car. Had I done that myself? Was my mind playing tricks? But given recent developments, maybe it’s Mac whose mind is playing tricks. I’d been waiting all morning for a confrontation which never came. Maybe she’d been arguing with Reuben about something else entirely, but it seems unlikely. Either she’s had a mental lapse about the whole situation, or she’s biding her time, waiting for me to crack. Maybe she’s sending me subliminal messages through the Cruel Sister story, playing with me until I finally confess and leave for good. I can’t escape the notion that Mac has an axe to grind, although I can’t quite see what connection it has with me. And Anna. Who the hell is Anna?

  Sighing, I turn my attention to the desk. There are at least six jotters scattered across the surface, vying with electricity bills, invoices and newspaper cuttings for space and attention. The mess has blossomed like hogweed. There are yellowing recipes clipped from old newspapers, receipts for grain going back to the eighties. One black corner of the laptop pokes out from under the debris.

  Sighing, I pull it out, and the crap collapses like a tower of Jenga blocks. Dumping the computer on the chair, I gather up a collection of random notebooks and loose pages from the floor. I flick through each jotter, a bad habit of mine. I’ve always been hungry for other people’s writing. I’ve read Jane’s diary, attempting to assess her relationship with Reuben. I’ve read and re-read his texts to me, trying to second-guess him. I even scour Arthur’s menu, in the hope of uncovering what he’s really trying to sell. And now the tables have turned. My writing has fallen into the wrong hands. My sister’s hands.

  I follow Mac’s frantic scrawl through several books, trying to piece it together, realising that she’s been scribbling the story of the Cruel Sister on anything that’s come to hand. I open book after book. The tale of the Cruel Sister has cut loose. It’s rambling, disjointed – spilling like ivy over every scrap of paper, dark tendrils reaching for me, wrapping around my wrists, my arms, up to my throat.

  ‘You bring me a gift and yet I don’t know you.’ Bella cannot take her eyes from the stranger. Her imagination is lost in the black folds of his cloak. The hall spins away; her father, her mother, her new husband and the babble of the wedding party. ‘I do not know you.’

  ‘If you don’t want my gift, then I will go.’

  As suddenly as that, in the blink of an eye, the stranger picks up the jute sack and strides away. She hears the slither of his cloak across the threshold and the bang of the hall door. He is gone.

  The bride runs after him, flowers falling from her hair. She follows the scent of him, one of fields, old hay and dung; of gunpowder and something she can’t quite recognise. Something stagnant and sickening, like water that has been stopped up for too long.

  I place the laptop gently on the floor and sink onto the chair, clear desk space for my elbows and allow my head to sink into my hands.

  Where on earth do I begin to find an ending?

  Lucie

  August

  The fluttering starts low down in my belly. It twists and blooms; the thrip thrip thrip of beating wings. Beating wings, beating heart. Discordant fluttery notes vibrating through my bones. I jerk awake. I can hear the stop-start stirrings of the sparrows in the ivy. The window is open a crack, and the fresh scent of dawn lures me.

  We are still wrapped up in each other, Arthur’s arm aro
und my back, cradling me to him. I press a kiss into the hollow of his throat and raise my head. I need to disentangle myself. Under the duvet our legs are a jumble, and even though he’s still asleep, his arm tightens around me when I move. His damp penis grows hard against my thigh. My head is full of the night. Not the sex, not the feel of him inside me, but the intimacy; the gentleness of his hands on that lost place. The place that is no longer lost, but full.

  It is too much. Too soon. Stealthily, I retreat, letting the cold air seep in around us, two separate beings once again. I slip from the bed and pull on some clothes, pad through the silent chill to the back door. Jamming my feet into borrowed wellies, I let myself out into the dawn.

  The mill looks unusually mellow, the stone stained pink, the black trees behind it haloed in red. Raucous crows jostle and bully each other. Up ahead, on the track, a large dog fox slinks about his business. On a sudden impulse I climb the boundary wall and drop down silently into the field.

  There is a path of sorts, dividing the weedy margin – hawthorn and nettles and docks – from the crop. It’s barley, I can see that now. That last time, when the sky was low with rain and mist, only the green edge of it was visible, but now acres and acres lie before me. A vast tawny fur, shifting in the breeze, and beyond that the sea. It’s tipping over into full, golden ripeness. Not long now. The tall, fibrous stalks are straight as soldiers, and there’s a sharp edge to the path, where the plough scored the earth just six months ago. Only six months ago I’d arrived here, intent on breaking new ground.

  Goldfinches dart in and out of the hawthorn. Their wings go thrip thrip thrip against the leaves, a noise like someone plucking strings. It unnerves me. I should go back, but I’m mesmerised by the rise and fall of the barley – it’s like the whole field is breathing. I want to plough into it, feel it surround me. But instead I take a step back and fall heavily over the plough rut.

  I feel the fall in every part of me: my jaw, my nose, my teeth, my buttocks. I lie there, stunned. Black is creeping in. I don’t know if my eyes are open but I can’t see the light, just the nodding ears of barley; whiskers scraping my face like fingernails, jabbing my lips.

  The barley is burned. Gold has tipped over into russet and the sun is hot. I see yellow at the edge of my vision, the lazy trail of silk through the field. The mill. We must go to the mill. A child laughs. I struggle to sit up, but dizziness overwhelms me, and I’m coughing, spitting feathers of barley from my mouth.

  But he’ll be there. The miller will be there.

  Don’t be afraid.

  I must swim to the surface, choking in the black water. I must come up for air – find the voices. Yellow silk brushes my skin, the scent of lavender and smoke and candle wax.

  Bella, don’t leave me with the miller . . . Bella . . .

  I sit upright with a huge gasp. My head feels twice as heavy as it should and I have to hold it in my hands as I scan the field. The meadow is empty, a vast swathe of near-ripeness, the only sound the soft swish of its breathing. I try to pull together the frayed edges of what happened but it’s all falling away.

  Embarrassment overwhelms me. Falling and banging your head – it’s a childish mishap, or something an old lady might do. I scramble to my feet, wincing and clutching all the bits that feel jarred, disjointed: my belly, my right elbow. For a moment I can’t get my bearings. The barley field has turned into a skein of wool; I’m knitted into it and stumbling over the threads, the rows and ruts of the land.

  I can hear barking a long way off. It gives me something to fix on, and I follow it, scrambling over the stone wall and finding myself once again on the familiar track that leads to the mill. What the hell am I doing? It’s Sunday morning. I should be in bed with Arthur right now, waking up to a kiss and maybe more, looking forward to a leisurely breakfast. I imagine him wearing my purple robe, knocking up pancakes and listening to Radio 2. That’s all he wants, to be with me, to look after me. It should be simple.

  When did I start making normal so complicated?

  Everything aches. I could have broken a leg out there, been lying for hours, and Arthur would have been frantic. He’s got enough to cope with, with the way his mother is at the moment. Splinters of a story jab at me: yellow fabric, the scent of candles. Have I been sleepwalking? The sky is brightening into full daylight. The mill is still in shadow. The barking is getting louder. Floss is standing by the old shed that houses the waterwheel, and even from a distance I can see the outline of her slight body heaving with the effort of making her voice heard.

  I hear the scrape of the cottage door and Arthur comes into view around the corner. ‘Floss,’ he’s saying. ‘Pipe down.’ His voice is low, as if he’s afraid of waking up the world. He isn’t wearing my robe, but his feet are jammed into some ridiculous pink flip-flops, long discarded in the utility room. His shirt is flapping open and his glasses must have been left in the bedroom. He squints slightly when he catches sight of me. It’s cute. A surge of something hopeful takes my breath away.

  ‘Where have you been? I was getting worried. Are you okay?’

  No, I’m not okay. I want to talk to you about the past, about how it always has a hold on the present, no matter what you do. It’s waiting there, just out of sight. It’s waiting to take over. But I don’t know how to start such a conversation. I stretch my lower back against my hands and wince.

  ‘What is wrong with that fucking dog?’

  Arthur’s attention is diverted. He crouches down at the bottom of the cottage steps and slaps his thighs and makes encouraging noises in Floss’s direction. She stops barking and creeps from the shadow of the wheelhouse. She looks thin, battered, and she’s panting in a stressed sort of way. I suppose life, for dogs, is a constant dreamlike existence, living in the present moment, feeling your way through a jumble of impressions: sights, sounds, smells.

  I crouch down too and the dog slinks between us, troubled seal eyes searching our faces. I fondle one ear and she licks my wrist.

  ‘She’s probably been chasing rats.’

  I make a face. ‘Ugh. I hate rats.’

  ‘They tend to nest under the wheel,’ Arthur says. ‘There’s a pit beneath it, and an inspection tunnel that runs underground from the wheel to the burn.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll let you see it one day. If you wade into the burn, you’ll see an old iron gate. You can walk into the tunnel from there, right into the wheelhouse. It’s quite a feat of engineering, but only Ma goes in there now, to put down rat poison.’

  ‘I hate water. I think I’ll pass.’

  ‘Probably wise.’ Arthur straightens up, adjusts his jeans. Floss still looks miserable, so I stay a moment longer, running my hands over her soft coat. She’s trembling from head to foot. ‘I never go near the place. It stinks down there, once the poison starts to work and the rats start dying off.’

  I hold up a hand. ‘Enough, thanks. So does Floss do this a lot? Bark at nothing?’

  ‘Dunno. Like I say, I don’t come down here if I can help it.’ Arthur casts a bleak look at the silent mill. ‘And when I do, I’m either rescuing Ma or . . . well, let’s just say I have a new reason to visit.’

  I move closer to him, and he reaches out, kisses me on the mouth – a soft, butterfly kiss – and I lace my arms around him, hold him tightly. Floss nudges my knee and whines, but we’re no longer listening.

  Mac

  Precise details of the reduction process of bones can be hard to find. Typically, the bones were first boiled to make them brittle and to remove the fat. The fat would be skimmed off, and used for such things as coach and cart grease. More primitively, the bones would be burned to achieve the same effect. They would then be either chopped by hand or put through a toothed cylinder. Either process would reduce the bones to smaller, more manageable pieces. In the final process, the millstones powered by the waterwheel would grind the bone to dust.

  Anita sets a glass of something steamy in front of me. I snatch my papers away
from it and tap the vessel with my pencil.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s chai, with steamed milk. It’s very . . . settling.’ She smiles, but doesn’t look at me, just sweeps some crumbs from the table into her elegantly manicured hand.

  ‘Didn’t I ask for coffee?’ It’s not a complaint. I really cannot remember.

  ‘You told me you hadn’t been sleeping well after your recent illness.’ She glances at the wall clock. ‘It’s after four. Maybe a break from caffeine might help. Chai contains spices – cardamom, cinnamon, ginger . . . all very warming and soothing. It promotes a sense of wellbeing. Try it.’

  ‘Has Arthur put you up to this? He has, hasn’t he? He thinks I’m going doolally. What tosh! I’m a very busy woman, and I’ve been missing in action for a week. I have things to catch up on. Deadlines. Good heavens!’

  ‘Try it,’ she says, with just a hint of frost. She walks away, swinging her tea towel and I take a sip, face already puckered in anticipation of such rancid foreign muck. But it’s surprisingly pleasant, warm and spicy. I dash away the froth from my lip and turn back to my papers.

  ‘You’ll be interested in this, Anita.’ I raise my voice so that it carries across the cafe. At an adjacent table, a couple are tucking into something that smells of sausage. They look like ramblers, with matching blue cagoules draped over the backs of their chairs.

  Politely, Anita returns to my side, her face like that of a poker player.

  ‘Bones.’ I indicate the notes spread across the table. ‘That’s your bag, isn’t it? I bet you didn’t know that at one time the country was full of bone mills. They spread it on the land, you see. Bone meal. We still use it today, although I had to stop my gardener spreading blood and bone meal. Tremendously pungent stuff – used to drive the dogs bonkers.’